Glassblowing is a very old way of creating glass ornaments vases and other products from the glass. It is working on very simple principle, you take the molten material, then you are transforming it, however, your imagination tells you to shape it. the shaping is done by blowing into a tube and carefully shaping it with some special tools that are made just for this. There are plenty of ways that you can shape and manipulate the glass that you are working with, you can add different colors to make unique pieces that stand out.

The shapes and forms are endless, you can create almost anything that comes to your mind. However, in order to do it, you have to be very experienced. Of course, you have to start somewhere, in order to become good at something you need to continually practice it, especially glassblowing can take up a few years before you master the blowing techniques. It is a very exciting and fun experience to learn glassblowing and it is something that can make you a lot of money if you get good at it.

The most important thing about glassblowing is that you have to be in love with the process otherwise you will never succeed if you are doing it just for money. You have to put a lot of time, effort, and hard work in order to achieve a success.

Tools You Need for Glassblowing

First of all, before you start buying all the tools that are required for glassblowing, you need to have space where you will be able to work with glass. This requires a space that is big and has a good ventilation because of all the high temperatures and gasses that are released during the process. When you have your place, then you can start buying tools. First obviously, you need a furnace, you can get any size it doesn’t need to be huge. These furnaces will take about a week to get the required working temperature. Then you need a re-heating furnace because when you take out the glass for shaping it will cool and after a short time you will not be able to shape it.

Then, the common things like a workbench, with all the hand tools, jacks, tweezers some pairs of shears. Some people are even using newspaper to shape their glass. One more important thing that you must have is an annealer that will cool down your glass to a room temperature in about 12 hours, depending on the shape and the thickness of the glass piece that you have created.

Glassblowing Tips

The first tip that we can give you is that you prepare your working space before you start working with glass. Get all the tools out that you will use and make sure that they are clean because you don’t want to use them on the clear glass if they are dirty. Next thing is to prepare your blowing pipes, first blow through them to make sure that they are clean and to see if there is any glass plugging the end of it.

The glass is a material that cannot be found in nature or at least not in the form that we are using it. There was some Vulcans that created naturally glass but that is not what we are talking about. The glass is a material that is created by humans for many different purposes. It is just like plastic or paper, it requires a specially designed equipment and ingredients in order to make it. In the manufacturing of glass, you can point out few very important materials that when put together create glass. Of course, mixing these materials together will not make glass. That is because glass making requires a special method and equipment that is responsible for making it.

The first people who made glass didn’t use any of the modern equipment, they only used what they had and that was heat. It was discovered around 5000 BC when people realized that the ingredients formed glass when they were melted together. However, people didn’t start using it practically until 3500 BC, the first things that were made out of glass were vases or pots. Nothing fancy was made up until the start of 20th century when the modern methods and techniques developed.

If you have ever wondered what are the ingredients of glass, now is the time to find out because we have done the research for you and made a list of things that are crucial ingredients of glass. These ingredients are almost the same that the people used 5000 BC when it was first discovered. Some ingredients were added to the mix to make the glass more durable or cleared, but the main ingredients stayed the same.

Ingredients for Glass Making

Sand or Silica. These two materials are the key to glass making without them there would be no glass. Nothing else can replace them and they are from the original recipe from 5000 BC. Silica has an extremely high melting point little over 2000 degrees. Furthermore, silica is used to create different things not just glass.

Sodium Carbonate. This ingredient is added to the mix just for one single purpose and that is to lower the melting point of the Silica to around 1000 degrees. Which instantly lowers the required time for this process to end. However, a bad thing about this ingredient is that it will make the glass dissolvable in water. One thing that you don’t want with glass is to be dissolvable when in contact with water.

Lime or Calcium Oxide. Calcium Oxide is added to the mix just to fix an issue that occurs with adding the Sodium Carbonate. The issue with that ingredient is that makes the glass dissolvable in water. Calcium Oxide is designed to do the opposite thing and make the glass non-dissolvable in water. This ingredient among many others is only used to enhance the properties of the final product.

There are a lot more other ingredients that are used for glass making. However, those ingredients are used depending on what type of product you are making out of the glass. For example, if you want to make a durable glass, then you need to add some ingredients that will enhance the durability.

The glass is just like any other material that is made by humans affect the environment some way. Those effects cannot be seen immediately, however that doesn’t mean that they are not existing and that they are not changing our environment. Usually, these effects are showing up after a longer period of time. The glass is a polluting material, the whole process of glass making is very dangerous to the environment because those factories are polluting the air with some toxic gasses.

Importance of Glass

The glass is a very important part of our lives, it has a lot of different purposes and most of them are crucial to everyday use. If you just look around you, most likely you can point out at least ten different uses of glass. Knowing that glass is very important we are still producing it because we are always creating new things that require glass, or we just use it for some already invented product.

Probably the most commonly used product made from glass are windows. They are everywhere, in every home and in every building. Without windows, our homes wouldn’t look so nice from the inside because we wouldn’t have a nice outside look. Windows in cars are also a great use of glass because it allows people that are sitting in the car to see outside of it and stay protected the same time from the weather conditions. There are just never enough glass, therefore we need to make new glass, and by doing that we are polluting our planet.

Recycling

Recycling is a very popular way of saving the planet from pollution because glass if you didn’t know, can be recycled completely without any loss of the material. That is the best thing about it, you will never lose anything when you are recycling it and it will not lose its quality, glass can be recycled infinitely. Unfortunately, people usually just hear of recycling old glass bottles. However, there are plenty more recyclable products that you might not know about.

Almost every piece of glass can be recycled, they only need to be separated. That is because not all the glass products have the same ingredients or consistency. For example, windows are made out of much more durable glass than glass bottles that you can purchase, and the window glass is much purer than the glass bottle. If we recycle all the glass we can slow down the glass making process and that way help our planet.

A treehouse is a dream of every kid, it was always popular and it will stay that way. My name is Dan Lombardo and I previously owned a window cleaning company in southern California. While glass blowing at the time was my passion and hobby, it didn’t always pay the bills, so I figured since I make glass, why not make money cleaning it too! I saw a treehouse in one of our customer’s backyard that really inspired me to write this. If you are a parent, then you know the struggle when your kid is asking you to build him a treehouse. Usually, the reason why they want one is because they have seen in somewhere in a movie. Unfortunately, you have two options, from which one will make your kid very sad. Therefore, a lot of parents actually decide to build a treehouse. The problem with that is that usually they don’t have any previous building experience and they don’t know what to expect or how to exactly do it.

Usually, nowadays all you need to do is to search on the internet how to build a treehouse and you will have a ton of different types of treehouses to choose from. People let their kid decide which one they like and start building it. The problems occur when they have already bought all the necessary material and equipment for the build because the instructions are never good enough and people get stuck at some point of the build.

Window Problem

The biggest problem that parents have with treehouses is that usually, the house guide they are following doesn’t have windows included into the build. That can be a problem because not every day that you kid wants to play in the treehouse will be sunny. Things like rain or even show can ruin your treehouse if it is not protected with windows. That’s why if you want to build a proper treehouse that will last you for a long period of time, you have to make your own windows.

Get Professional Help

When it comes to windows, you have to have some professional design them specifically for that treehouse because the measures can be very unusual. We suggest that you hire a company like us, that will create the highest quality windows for your treehouse in no time. A good thing about having quality windows is that you will preserve the life of the treehouse. That is because windows, if they are properly installed, will protect the inside of the treehouse and that way protects the wood from the outside conditions.

It is crucial that the window that you purchase is completely sealed and it is installed the right way. That way, you will never have any problems with the weather. You will be able to let your kids pay in the treehouse while it is raining outside.